State House Majority Leader Dave Reed told Patriot-News/Pennlive.com Editorial Page Editor John Micek last week that the next few weeks will be critical in the ongoing state budget negotiations. Leader Reed said there is bipartisan support for more funding for education and a lot of interest in property tax relief. But there isn’t agreement yet on how these should be achieved. "We want to fix the structural deficit.

The Associated Press reported that Gov. Wolf is trying a new strategy as the state budget impasse extended into its ninth week – negotiating in private meetings with top Republican leaders instead of in brief but large gatherings with dozens of legislators and their staff. On Sept. 1, Gov. Wolf met at his official residence with Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman and House Majority Leader Dave Reed.

Act 1 may not be perfect, but it has slowed the growth of school property taxes. Since the passage of Act 1 in 2006, and its revision in 2011, the growth of school property taxes has moderated in Pennsylvania. A newly revised forecast from the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) shows more modest growth in coming years.

Pennsylvania is already short of money and borrowing to pay bills less than three months into a new budget year. And that's after transferring $225 million from other state funds in July.

State officials can't blame a natural disaster, unfortunate accident or month of unexpectedly low tax collections. Instead, the culprit is a built-in imbalance between revenues and expenditures triggered, in large part, by policymaker choices.

For the sixth straight month, General Fund revenues fell short of estimate in May, missing the target by $108 million, or 5.5% for the month. The year-to-date revenue deficit grows to $613 million, or 2.3% below estimate (excluding the early transfer of liquor store profits in March). The deficit is now larger than the $581 million the Independent Fiscal Office had forecasted for the fiscal year just one month ago, as tax collections in nearly every category fell short of estimate in May.

The Commonwealth once again claims its spot in the “Terrible 10” most unfair tax structures in the nation. The lowest 20% of income earners in the state pays more than double (2.3 times) their share of family income on state and local taxes than the top 1%.

The House and Senate have now passed a $32.7-billion state budget — $281 million less than the governor’s proposed budget, which is expected to be passed on to the Senate next week. The General Assembly budget passed easily and proposed no new tax increases or fees.

There seems to be an overall optimism among state legislators that the Pennsylvania budget will pass on time given the positive revenue numbers in the state, a straight-forward budget proposal by the governor, and no haunting budget deficit to overcome like in years past. That said, the details of what said budget will look like have not been shared.

A new “big-data” base on U.S. school districts provides new evidence that Pennsylvania has many high-performing schools but many lower-income rural and urban districts that perform less well. A likely culprit: Pennsylvania’s inadequate state funding for schools. Low state school funding leaves moderate- and lower-income districts poorly funded and with less in total funding than affluent districts, even though the lower-income districts serve students with higher rates of poverty, non-English speaking families, and other challenges that hold back achievement.